As seen in the Aug. 9 shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., witness accounts varied widely because of their physical perspectives and their own biases. Had body cameras been worn by the local police, there would have been more reliable evidence about Brown’s encounter with police that day.
With the apparent rise in racial tensions as a result of several high-profile police-misconduct cases, these body cameras would be one big step toward mending relations between the police and the public.
President Barack Obama is allocating $263 million for the Body-Worn Camera Partnership Program, which would provide a 50-percent match to police departments nationwide. Seattle City Councilmember Bruce Harrell, who has long advocated for such devices, aims to outfit each Seattle police officer with a body camera in 2016 with some of that money to “improve public safety, police accountability and transparency,” he said.
There are still many outstanding issues with the use of body cameras. A computer programmer demonstrated how difficult it is for the Seattle Police Department to release videos from patrol-car cameras when he requested all the footage produced by such cameras via public disclosure. The sheer volume of video to be processed to blur faces and strip audio to preserve confidentiality of those featured is just one consideration.
And even with body cameras capturing police interactions, investigators’ interpretations of what is shown can differ. The case of a Seattle officer punching an intoxicated woman who kicked him as she was put into the back of a police vehicle, resulted in the King County and Seattle prosecutors’ offices having different views of the June 22 incident: The city attorney considered the officer’s actions felonious and gave it the county prosecutor’s office as the city doesn’t prosecute such crimes. The county prosecutor, however, chose not to file any criminal charges. The U.S. attorney’s office is now considering a federal civil rights investigation.
With so much at stake, requiring all police officers to wear body cameras would remove at least one element from debate. And they force police officers and the possible suspects to put their best face forward.